On a night when the San Jose Sharks needed a win to keep pace with their division rivals, Devils goaltender Cory Schneider to hand New Jersey a 5-2 victory.

Schneider turned aside 34 of 36 shots, including 18 in the third period to earn his 16th victory of the season. Although the Devils ended up winning this one by a comfortable margin, Schneider had to defend in what was a tight contest for most of the night.

He was beaten early in the contest by Joe Pavelski as San Jose got on board first:

The Devils bounced back late in the period from a pair of unlikely sources though as Jordin Tootoo and Steve Bernier each found the back of the net. Sharks forward Matt Nieto tied the game early in the second frame before Mike Cammalleri netted what proved to be the game-winning goal:

Scott Gomez ended up with two assists against his former team, giving him 16 points in 23 games with New Jersey in 2014-15. Devils forward Jacob Josefson was playing for the first time since Dec. 27 and he only got 10:42 minutes on the ice, but he made the most of it with an assist and a shorthanded marker.

With this loss and Vancouver’s victory over Florida, San Jose has conceded second place in the Pacific Division. The Sharks also saw their edge on Calgary and Los Angeles shrink as the Flames earned a 2-1 overtime win against the Kings.

New Jersey is unfortunately one of the hardest hit teams by the mumps outbreak. Forward Patrik Elias became the third Devils’ player to be diagnosed with the mumps on Friday after Travis Zajac and Adam Larsson. Today it was revealed that Michael Ryder has the disease as well, per the Bergen Record.

The illness has also spread to the Devils’ affiliate, the AHL Albany Devils, as 37-year-old goaltender Scott Clemmensen is battling the mumps.

The Devils will get back Dainius Zubrus (leg) and Jacob Josefson (groin) tonight though. Along with the anticipated recall of Tim Sestito, New Jersey will have 11 healthy forwards for their game against the New York Rangers.

So yeah, lots of green there. Of the 15 forwards listed, 14 of them have reached the stage in their careers where they’re pending unrestricted free agents. Only Jacob Josefson is a pending restricted free agent, shown in red.

The Devils’ defense features a bit more red…

…and rookie Damon Severson is averaging an impressive 23:01 of ice time this season.

But in a young man’s league like the NHL, where speed kills and teams need to be constantly refreshing their rosters with energetic legs, the Devils’ average age, around 31, raises a huge red flag.

Part of the reason for that is, since 1997, New Jersey has only had one top-10 draft pick, and that was used on defenseman Adam Larsson (fourth overall in 2011). Fair to say, the jury’s still out on him.